A Letter For The Modern Day Church

This is a letter that I came across from someone who is questioning the priorities of many modern day churches. It is quite long but it raises some interesting points and is well and truly worth the read.

Dear Pastor

The reason for this letter is to share concerns that have been playing on my mind over the last few years. Often we need to dig deep into ourselves to get down to the root problem of issues, and God knows the soul searching I have engaged in over the last few years. My commitment to God, however, has never waned through all the times of doubt and if anything it has been these times that have brought me into a deeper relationship with Him.

Over the last twelve months, we have gone through an awakening in God which has been as clumsy as it has been great. An awakening in the sense that God, we believe, has been bringing us into a more “back to basics” style of thinking. We have always thought that the mainstream orthodox style model of church has its place. But when the focus becomes the institution rather than the people within it, that’s when it starts to concern us.

An Inward Focused Church

An inwardly focused church that looks mainly at dynamics of music, “lights, camera & action,” can not spiritually sustain a congregation forever. Nor is it logical to think that a church that predominantly spends either most of its time and/or money on itself is going to make the transition to outreach easily. The by-product of inward focus is mainly the over-esteem of people (rather than God) and gossip, areas in which many churches are struggling with at the moment.

What has happened to Biblical practices like unconditional friendship, love and compassion? These things may seem idealistic but at the end of the day these are very basic biblical attributes that the church as a body should not only strive for, but do. People who are taught to look constantly at themselves will never be able to thrive in God. It’s the outward focus that actually changes us, and draws us nearer to God. It’s amazing how, when people start looking at the world around them like Jesus saw people, they begin to change themselves. Christians were never meant to focus on themselves or each other. The whole idea of the gospel is about looking outside you.

As a whole, many churches have a middle class culture. I think it has always had an element of this – a bit of a need to be accepted, maybe. I suppose that’s okay if you want to attract only “middle class” stereo types. The problem with that is that it makes this church like the other thousand in Australia happy to be part of the status quo. You will find that the types of people we all talk about wanting to come to our churches would find themselves alienated for all the wrong reasons.

Worship

Performance and entertainment style worship rather than true awe-inspiring worship takes the attention from the pews and turns it to the stage. This kind of church service all adds insult to injury for many hurting in our community who might need an understanding environment to come into.

Jesus himself said he didn’t come into the world to help those who were well or those who are happy with their current lives and can live without God, but the sick. He didn’t ever specifically give his message to people who could help out “the Kingdom” with their gifts or talents, in fact he told them to sell everything and give it to the poor! He went to those who had nothing, the people at the bottom of society. In modern times it’s the drug addicts, the alcoholics, the prostitutes, the homeless, the single mothers struggling on welfare, the mentally ill and just the down and outs. Unfortunately I don’t believe we could bring them through the doors of many of our churches in its present form.

A reason of this I think is that the performance, concert style church does not meet the need of the average person. Secular people want to see real people helping and loving each other over and above the status quo. As Jesus amplifies in His Word, ‘this is how the world will know that you are my disciples, IF you love one another’.

Pastoral Care

In the area of pastoral care I have very traditional views of what pastoral care should be. I read in my Bible that Christ is a suffering servant, prepared to do anything for his friends, his flock. Yet, how many times have I heard of members of congregations in churches around this country struggling through difficult circumstances on their own. This is an area which needs to be looked at closely. I don’t think the church can fob off any longer its duty of care, because there are just too many hurting people out there. This is not a special “ministry” for only a few people to do – it should be done by all. It is Christian’s ‘bread and butter’ job requirement.

The verses in Matthew 25:41 – 46 are not just warning Christians to look after each other, it’s the actions of believers toward their fellow man – all people, including those within the church and outside. It’s either caring about others or not. It’s not just “doing nice things”. It’s about making a real and long lasting difference for the glory of God.

Indifference

People are unsatisfied with the church’s present course of indifference. Many of these people may be thought of as “fringe”, dwellers of the church, however it’s for these people that Christ requires us to leave the ninety-nine and go find that one. Over the last few years I have increasingly been exposed to comments such as, “everyone is welcome into my circle of friendship, if people step out of that circle it’s not my fault”, and “people can find the negative in any thing”, and “I want to be around positive people not negative”.

Fair enough, but people that are hurting in this tough life are often struggling with financial pressures, marriage breakdown, drug abuse and alcohol abuse are not generally positive, vibrant people with vision and positive thinking oozing out of them. As a church we should set a goal to embrace and love people where they are at, not try to mould them as we want them to be.

The Method

Another concern following on is the phrase I hear all the time. ”It does not matter if the method changes as long as the message is the same’. There is some truth in that statement but the message has and does change when Christ’s road to a conversion is tampered with. It’s like the road to sale approach that a sales person may use. It’s been tried and tested, it works. If I take short cuts and think I can do it my way I often don’t see the same results.

What was once a desire by ministers to present the gospel in an exegetical powerful way has become diluted and leans towards motivational speaking. We’re not talking about outdated, old-fashioned fire and brimstone preaching here – it’s simply about preaching the whole Bible, not just the bits that sound pretty.